In popular belief, a Stoic is a person who is insensitive and unemotional and an Epicurean is a person who enjoys all pleasures to the point of excess. Nothing could be further from the truth. Both the Stoics and the Epicureans have rich emotions and follow strict discipline in their desires and pleasures. The difference between these two schools, founded around 300 BC, is on another level.
Ethics: Epicurean pleasure vs. Stoic duty
Should we follow our duty or pleasure to be happy? For the Stoics, it is duty; for the Epicureans, pleasure. This is the fundamental difference between Stoicism and Epicureanism.
More precisely, an Epicurean follows mainly the natural and necessary desires :
- for happiness — philosophy, friendship, the suppression of pain…
- for ease — physical exercise, healthy housing, balanced food…
- for life — the satisfaction of vital needs…
Natural and unnecessary desires, such as the search for sex or comfort, are accepted as long as they are under control and do not dominate us. Unnatural and unnecessary desires, such as luxury, fame, or immortality, are to be rejected.
A Stoic, for his part, follows his duty and what preserves his constitution as a social and reasonable being: he seeks above all to act with justice, courage, moderation, and prudence. He does not make his happiness depend on ease, friendship or pleasure. Pleasures accompany the good life but are not necessary to his tranquility, which comes from virtue alone.
EPICUREANISM
And that is why we say that pleasure is the principle and the end of the good life. For it is pleasure that we have recognized as the first and most natural good, it is in pleasure that we find the principle of all choice and refusal, and it is in pleasure that we end up judging every good according to affection as a criterion.
Epicurus, “Letter to Menoeceus”, § 124STOICISM
Virtue is sufficient for happiness, as Zeno and Chrysippus say in the first book Of Virtues and Hecaton in the second book Of Goods. If,” he says, “greatness of soul is enough to put a man above all else, and if it is only a part of virtue, then virtue will suffice with its contempt for all apparent embarrassments.”
Diogenes Laertius, Lives and opinions of the philosophers, VII, 125–127
Politics: the Garden of Epicurus vs. the Stoa of Stoicism
The lifestyles of the Stoics and the Epicureans are very different.
The Epicureans live in a garden outside the city. They consider that life in a community of friends is necessary for the tranquility of the soul and refuse political participation, supporting the idea that“if you want to be happy, keep your head down”. This did not prevent them from reflecting on law, the notion of justice, or rhetoric.
The Stoics, on the other hand, had their school in the middle of the city, under the painted portico (Stoa) of Athens, and consider that we should get involved in politics if circumstances lead us to it or oblige us to do so. For them, living hidden is not a necessary condition for happiness: it is the virtue that matters, whether one lives hidden or gets involved in politics.
EPICUREANISM
Let us not occupy ourselves, said Metrodorus, to save Greece nor to deserve civic crowns. The only desirable crown is that of wisdom. But let us do beautiful thing upon beautiful thing, by not holding on to this earthly life any more than by the body and by immersing ourselves in the divine mysteries of Epicurus.
Metrodorus, On philosophy, quoted by PlutarchSTOICISM
According to the Stoics, the wise man will do politics, if he is not prevented from doing so, as Chrysippus says in the first book “Of Lives”; he will stop vice and encourage virtue.
Diogenes Laërce, Lives and opinions of the philosophers, VII, 121
Logic: the inner speech of Stoicism vs. the sensation of Epicureanism
Stoics and Epicureans agree that useful knowledge is that which should lead to a better life.
Epicureans act according to pleasure. Their criterion of truth is the sensation: if something gives me pleasure, it is to be chosen; if it is pain, it is to be avoided. This psychology of action is not as basic as it seems. Not all pleasure is good to take, and not all pain is to be avoided. For example, finishing an important project that requires effort (pain) but that will bring me real satisfaction and lighten my mental load (stable pleasure) is a pain to be chosen. On the other hand, consuming alcohol excessively that will cause a hangover and possible long-lasting disorders (pain) is a pleasure to reject.
To know which pleasures to choose and which pains to reject, an Epicurean relies on his own experience (because the criterion of truth is sensation) and on the value he attributes to each pleasure. Stable pleasures, those that bring peace of mind and ease, are to be preferred over others. These logical operations are called “sober reasoning” by Epicurus.
The Stoics, on the other hand, do not make pleasure the criterion of choice or of truth. They rely on what should be done here and now: duty, virtue. Their criterion is the exact representation, the one that does not add any value judgment to the reality of things. According to them, the exact representation necessarily leads to virtue. For example, if I am on the road and I arrive in a traffic jam, the exact representation consists in seeing this traffic jam without adding any inner speech. If I add a discourse like “this traffic jam is terrible, it will make me arrive late, which is also terrible”, I move away from the factual reality of things. I consider this “moral pain” as evil, which is objectively not the case. In Stoicism, the only judgments like “this is good” and “this is bad” refer to the virtuous and the vicious attitude, respectively. Stoic ethics is thus guided by a careful examination of our representations and by assenting only to accurate representations.
EPICUREANISM
We sometimes leave out many pleasures, when it follows, for us, more unpleasantness. And we consider that many sufferings prevail over pleasures, each time, for us, a greater pleasure comes as a result of the sufferings that one has long endured. […] It is, however, by comparative nature and the examination of what is useful and what is harmful that all these states should be discerned, for, according to the moment, we use the good as an evil or, conversely, the evil as a good.
Epicurus, “Letter to Menoeceus”, §129–130STOICISM
Let every passion therefore be erased and the soul appeased, by teaching it that what gives rise to pleasure and desire is not a good, and that what produces fear or sorrow is not an evil. […] There is another way of reasoning and speaking which, by removing the false opinion, at the same time removes the pain.
Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes, IV, 28, 60
Physics: the indifference of the Epicurean gods vs. the divine Nature of Stoicism
In Stoicism and Epicureanism, the understanding of nature has a liberating effect on the soul.
For Epicurus, the study of the world frees one from the fear of the gods and death. His physics holds that the gods are not to be feared because they do not act on the world. Events are explained naturally, without their intervention. For example, when a pandemic occurs, it is the mechanical effect of natural laws that causes it and not a will of nature.
Moreover, Epicurean physics is materialist: everything is matter, including the soul of the human being. This one is composed of atoms that disintegrate at death and lose all sensibility, like the body. Thus, death is not to be feared because it is the disappearance of the body and the soul, that is to say, of the sensation of living. We cannot suffer from being dead.
In Stoicism, physics allows us to understand our place in the universe and to “live in harmony with nature”. To understand the universe and its laws is thus to accept what does not depend on us and to see things as they are, without adding erroneous judgments. To understand humanity is to identify our role in society, our duties towards others, and our capacity to produce good and evil. To understand our soul is to identify what depends on us (our desires, judgments, assents…) and to act to produce the good, the only one able to make us happy. Stoic ethics derives from the observation of nature: nature is harmonious, coherent, and benevolent; the human being must reflect these same qualities.
EPICUREANISM
One cannot be free from fear about the most essential things [the gods and death] if one does not know exactly what the nature of the universe is, but ascribes some hint of truth to the mythological stories, so that without the study of nature it is not possible to obtain our pleasures in their pure state.
Epicurus, “Letter to Pythocles”, §86STOICISM
Whoever wants to live in accordance with nature, must indeed start from the overall vision of the world and of providence. One cannot make true judgments about goods and evils without knowing the whole system of nature and the life of the gods, nor knowing whether or not human nature is in accord with universal nature.
Cicero, On Goods and Evils, III, 23, 73
Stoicism and Epicureanism are therefore different on many points (ethics, politics, logic, physics…). However, both philosophies share the same desire to help human beings live their lives to the fullest, through life discipline, research, exploration, and knowledge. So, are you rather a Stoic or an Epicurean?